Shoestring marketing for start-ups
(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Scott Olson is president of MindLink Marketing. He contributed this column to VentureBeat.)
In a startup, there is no more precious commodity than capital. It’s hard to come by and easily burned – and marketing budgets can quickly become one of the biggest line items.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though.
There are more cost effective and free marketing tools than ever, letting companies get a lot more marketing bang for their… Continue Reading
Are you creating or stealing customers?
(Editor’s note: Michael Greenberg is COO of Loyalty Lab. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)
It’s easy to think that your start-up is centered in a green field or blue ocean, but typically, that’s not the case. Only the lucky few are truly creating new customers out of thin air. Most have to steal them from someone else.
This is a fact that few entrepreneurs want to hear. But smart start-up owners know when to face… Continue Reading
How to make friends and influence people (and convert them)
(Editor’s note: Adam Toren is co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com. He contributed this story to VentureBeat.)
You’ve heard, time and again, how critical engaging in social media is to your start up – but you probably haven’t heard it laid out this succinctly: “[Social media] represents a powerful and additional channel to first listen to customers… and in turn, build two-way paths of conversations…. we also earn a place within their network as a trustworthy resource.”
The thoughts… Continue Reading
White paper guidelines – less glory, more story
(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Scott Olson is president of MindLink Marketing. He contributed this column to VentureBeat.)
Every good marketing professional knows when it comes to Internet marketing; success depends upon high quality, original content. It’s critical to any number of goals, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC), sponsored links, newsletters, drip marketing and web click through and conversion.
Of all the web content available, white papers are the strongest in terms of conversion… Continue Reading
You’re a little company, now act like one
(Editor’s note: Jason Cohen is founder of Smart Bear Software. He contributed this column to VentureBeat.)
I talk to a lot of companies that are still hunting for customer number one, or have made a few sales, but the ball really isn’t rolling yet.
Most of them are making the same mistake: Their public persona is exactly wrong.
I know, because I made the same mistake – but I learned my lesson.
Even before I had a single… Continue Reading
7 ways I’ve almost killed FreshBooks
I’ve often said, “were it not for my co-founder and VP of operations, I would have run this company into the ground long ago”. Sadly, that’s not hyperbole. Good partners can help reel you in when your thinking begins to wander off the path of righteousness and ensure that you don’t get too close to the ledge when you hit a bump in the road.
Here’s a list of ways that I’ve almost killed FreshBooks over… Continue Reading
How to determine if your marketing is worth the cost
You don’t have to be a dedicated student of current events to know that businesses are scrutinizing expenses more than ever. In an environment where staff cuts are commonplace and budgets are shrinking, marketing has quickly become one of the favorite targets for cost cutters.
If you work in a venture backed startup today, it is a good bet your board is taking a harder look than ever at marketing expenditures, trying to understand what those… Continue Reading
Is social media worth your marketing dollars?
As social media has reached mainstream consciousness this year, businesses have been inundated with the message that they must immediately get on board or risk doom and calamity. The hyperbole (and the frenzied buzz it creates) is confusing and many businesses could use a practical guide on how to evaluate social media and how to engage – if it’s appropriate.
It’s amusing to think that “Word of Mouth” marketing (which, essentially, is what Facebook, Twitter and… Continue Reading
3 drivers of growth for your business model. Choose one.
Every startup needs to “pick a major” among three drivers of growth. It’s simply too hard to focus on more than one. This choice has to be made at the level of strategy, because the tactics between involved in each driver are quite similar. Startups may pivot from one driver to another as they experiment. But failure to identify a clear driver of growth leads many entrepreneurs into dangerous territory.
Beware the new hire who has… Continue Reading
Using AdSense to cash in on the iPhone
It was only a matter of time, I suppose. Google, to no one’s real surprise, has tied its AdSense cash machine to the mobile applications market.
As downloadable applications proliferate for Apple’s iPhone and the Android platform, the web-behemoth is expanding its field-testing for the program and is playing with contextual ads for both platforms. According to Google, the ads can be targeted by “applications, locations, categories or keywords.”
Program developers can insert a snippet of code… Continue Reading
A eulogy for the click-through rate
I’m here to speak a little marketing heresy. The ubiquitous click-through rate, the longtime arbiter of the success or failure of online marketing efforts, is actually a pretty poor measurement tool – and seems to have outlived its usefulness.
Since the Internet emerged as a serious marketing medium, we have been bombarded with reports about click-through rates. We should, we are told, pay strict attention to them in order to quantify the effectiveness of our approach.
But… Continue Reading
Five key marketing priorities for a startup
Prioritizing your marketing time and resources can be a daunting task. Having previously discussed five marketing time wasters that startups should avoid, it seems wise to examine five marketing priorities you should consider as you put together a plan.
In general, your marketing efforts have two goals: reach potential customers and help them find you. If you can successfully navigate the following marketing deliverables, you’ll be well on your way to providing a strong foundation for… Continue Reading
Five marketing time wasters
Deciding how to allocate time and resources is a difficult process for any business -and it’s even harder for start-ups. But of all the allocation decisions to be made, there’s none more difficult than marketing.
Promote your company too little and you’re almost certainly doomed to fail. Promote it too much and you’re squandering dollars that might be better spent on R&D or preparing for a fundraising round.
As you consider your marketing strategies, here are five… Continue Reading
You’re not as good as the press thinks
(Editor’s note: In the mid-1990s, serial entrepreneur Steve Blank was CEO of Rocket Science Games, a video game developer that lived by the motto “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” . After releasing three mediocre titles – including “Obsidian” and “The Space Bar” – that never sold well, the company closed its doors in 1997. Here, Blank recounts one of the many problems the company ignored along its path to failure.)
At Rocket Science while my partner Peter… Continue Reading
Cinching sales with sports scores
When I was a young marketer I learned how to listen to customers by making a fool of myself.
Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers.
Convergent’s business was selling desktop computers (with our own operating system and office applications) to other computer manufacturers – most of them long gone: Burroughs,… Continue Reading